


come listen to my truest thoughts

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Breakfast, F/M, First Kiss, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Hugs, Kissing, Love Confessions, Similitude, Soulmates, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:45:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7531549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skoulson RomFest 2k16 REDUX - DAY 4 · 21 July <br/>unconditional</p>
<p>Coulson is given an ultimatum by Talbot to find Daisy.  Instead, she finds him.  Song title from Tupac Shakur's "Unconditional Love".</p>
            </blockquote>





	come listen to my truest thoughts

The first thing that occurs to him, once she’s gone, is that he feels alone.

Even though he helped her to get out.

There’s a flurry of activity around him, all these people, ATCU and SHIELD alike, as the manhunt starts to take shape.

It stirs up a feeling, not long ago, in the office that’s no longer his office. When they were searching for her.  He was searching desperately for her.

After Hive took her away.

He told her it would get better, but he was only talking about her getting better. 

Not the world.

The world is afraid of people like her.

She was right to run.

“Coulson,” Talbot barks at him, approaching him down the hallway. “You’re leading this.”

Shaken off of the mental path he was walking along, he realizes he’s standing in the middle of the hallway.  He sees the strange stares.

“Why?”

He’s genuinely curious why Talbot would suggest this, when he helped her escape.  It’s why he’s not Director.

Snuck her out of the secret passage just like May had helped him to do.  They barely said goodbye.

There was no escaping for him, not this time.  No more running.  He had to make a stand for her.

“Because she trusts you,” Talbot says, looking at him like he’s pathetic.

“She’s not coming back,” he tells him.  He tells himself. “It’s not her style.”

“She robbed a bank, Coulson.  Is that her style?  Do you know what will happen to her, if the military gets involved?  Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Fine,” he answers quickly, heading towards the office, where they’ve been monitoring her activity.

He looks at the screen and sees the footage from inside the bank.  The empty bank.

Then her eyes notice the camera, and she frowns into it, before she raises her hand.

It goes dark.

“Daisy,” he whispers.

“The place was empty,” Talbot assures him. “No one got hurt.”

He thinks it over, about why she would do this.  Other than the obvious reasons. “Where is it? The bank?”

“California,” Talbot tells him.  “Why?”

“It’s Malick’s HYDRA money,” he answers quickly, picking up the pad on the table and pulling up the data, when Daisy had traced all of Hive’s activity in the aftermath.

“This it?” Coulson says, showing him the account information, the name of the bank displayed there.

“Yes,” Talbot says, nodding, surprised. “This is why I need you on this.  You know how she thinks.”

“What do you plan to do if we catch her?” he demands.

“First things first,” Talbot says, snatching the pad out of his hand. “Containment, then negotiation. She caused a lot of property damage.”

Talbot turns on the monitor as multiple news stations display images of the bank, everyone trying to offer some kind of explanation.  Earthquake experts.

“I’m not letting that footage leak to the press,” Talbot tells him.  “But I’ve got to explain this to the President.  That we have a rogue agent on our hands.”

“She ran because she won’t help you put Inhumans in stasis!”

“These people are dangerous, Coulson. Not all of them, but a lot of them.”

“They also don’t have any legal rights, which, I’m sure is rather convenient for you,” he says back as one of the guards at the door starts to look nervous.

“You told me you wanted to protect people,” Talbot says, calmly. “What about protecting people from her?  Can you?”

“Of course I can,” he replies, drawing an even breath. “She would want me to do that.”

“You’re taking orders from me, not from her, Agent.”

He says it like a warning.  The intent clear.

“Understood.”

 

#

The pain in his leg wakes him up and he groans, and reaches towards the motel night stand.

He hears the sound of the bottle fall to the floor and sighs.

Being in the field means he has to always keep moving.  No more desks, and even though the physical therapy helped, he has a ways to go.

It’s not what he wants, but it’s what he has to do.  To keep moving. 

Shifting to swing his legs off the bed, he reaches down to grab the bottle when he notices the movement in the corner.

Someone’s here with him.

He won’t have time to go for the gun. Improvise.  The lamp.

“Do you want this?” she asks him, holding the gun out towards him. “Here.”

His mind wants him to move, to say something, but he can’t, he’s frozen in place.

After all this time.  Reassigned as his casework piles up, available when they want to ask a question about her stone cold trail. Ignoring his casework because he’s never stopped looking.

Well, she found him.

“I won’t need it, I’m sure.” He finds his voice and hears the sound of the gun touching the table.

She stands up from the chair and moves closer to him, where she can stand in the sliver of light from the window.

This has to be a dream.  He remembers her, sad, and turned inward, pulling away.

“You,” he sighs, trying to find the right words. “You look different.”

“Good different, or bad different?”

“Good.”

“I need your help,” she goes on, taking a few steps closer to him.  “Can we talk?”

“Yes.  It’s just me, Daisy.”

“ _You_ look different.” He can hear the smile in her voice more than he can make out the expression in the near dark.

“I not going to ask,” he tells her. “I already know the answer.”

But she’s lifted her hand to touch his face, at the almost beard that’s there, drawing her thumb along the curve of his cheek.

He can’t remember the last time she touched him, or let him touch her, and he grabs her, pulls her in with his arm, wanting to hug her tightly against him.

“I’ve got you,” he says, against her hair. “Now you can’t run.”

Her tiny laugh turns into a sobbing sound, and he holds her even closer.

“I didn’t run from you.” She looks up at him, sniffling. “And why are we still talking in the dark?”

His hand slides down her arm, lightly touching her wrist, like he’s afraid to break contact, and then he reaches towards the lamp on the nightstand.

“I’m not wearing my prosthetic,” he warns her. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

 

#

He watches her quietly, or tries not to, really, as she helps herself to contents of the breakfast tray on the table in front of her, and paces the room.

Strong. That’s the word he was thinking, looking at her shape in the evening light the night before.  She looks strong.

Even swallowed up in that scratchy old white bathrobe.

“So, you’re going to help me expose this?  Even if it goes all the way to the White House?” she asks, tearing off the end of a croissant with her teeth, and then pausing when she notices the board leaned up against the top of the dresser.

“Yes,” he says.  Again.  He told her last night he’d help. He’s even trying to read the file she brought with her.

Instead, his eyes follow to what has caught her interest and then he sees her smile widely as she looks at his board. It’s collection of articles and images of her.

Mapping her trail.

She gives him a mischievous look, then picks up a tack and pushes it into their location on the map.

“Updated,” she smirks, swinging around back towards him as she finishes the pastry.  “Looks like you finally found me.”

“Are you making fun?” he asks, and picks up the coffee cup to take a sip.

“That board is pretty serious work.  You’re that profiler guy the press always wants to talk to about me, aren’t you?”

She sits on the file he was reading, so that he has to look up at her.

“Yes, that’s me. Quake expert Phil Coulson.”

“Hmm,” she says, leaning to put her hands on his shoulders, as he sets the coffee down. “What am I thinking, right now?”

Since she’s given him permission, he lets himself stare at her openly.  Study her face.  The little scar that’s still on her cheek, smaller now.  Her mouth looks like a dare and she has an eyebrow raised at him, then finally licks her lips, because he’s taking too long on her brown eyes, and she’s unused to this kind of attention.

“That you don’t feel alone.  For the first time in a while,” he tells her, as the tips of his ears get hot. “And it makes you happy.”

She frowns slightly, as though the idea wasn’t even up for consideration.

It probably wasn’t.  It’s how _he_ feels right now. He can’t help but smile as she seems a little thrown off her teasing game.  The lightness of the moment.

“You’re right, “she says a second later, nodding her head.  “But that wasn’t what I was thinking.”

She puts a finger under his chin to raise it, then leans down and kisses his mouth, just once, sitting back to look at her handiwork, as a flush starts to make its way through his whole body.

This was supposed to be about what she needed, not about his own ideas about his feelings, which have only unraveled since she left.

“I’m glad you kept chasing me,” she tells him, running her fingers over his chin. “That you didn’t give up on me.”

“I would never give up on you,” he manages, catching her hand.  Where can he even begin to tell her how he’s felt for all these months? “Weren’t you ever annoyed?”

It’s the first thing that comes to mind, how needy he must seem to her. He’s tried so hard not to be.

“Honestly? Yeah, at first,” she says, standing, picking a strawberry off the tray. “I was still sorting stuff out.”

She moves his nervous hands one arm at a time, from where they’re resting on his legs and then eases down into his lap, taking a bite of the strawberry.

“Then I asked myself what I would do,” she says, swallowing. “If I were you. It made sense.”

“Because I love you,” he tells her, relieved, his eyes dropping to her mouth.  She knows.

“You _are_ a Quake expert.”

The second time she kisses him, he kisses back, and it feels so right, that she should know how much he’s missed her.  All the things he’s wanted to say, but couldn’t find words.

“So, that’s what it’s like,” she says, in wonder, lifting a hand to brush her fingers over his lips.

Her hands rest against his chest, as their smiles touch each other.

“Yeah.”


End file.
